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Andrews-Hanna et al. (2022). Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 151(3), 628–642.
Bellana et al (2022). Nature Communications, 13(1), Article 1.
Gable et al. (2016). Psychological Science, 30(3), 396–404.
Gray et al. (2019). American Psychologist, 74(5), 539–554.
Honey et al. (2023). Directions in Psychological Science, 09637214221143053.
Klinger (1978). The Stream of Consciousness: Scientific Investigations into the Flow of Human Experience (pp.
225–258)
Spinhoven et al. (2018). Journal of Affective Disorders, 241, 216–225.
REFERENCES
Greater semantic bias in participants reporting
more persistent thoughts.
Participants can block behavioral expression of
persistent thoughts, but not the thoughts
themselves.
Next steps:
Persistent thoughts may not be subject
to cognitive control.
Are they blocked by interference?
CONCLUSIONS
Free
Association
3 Minutes
(suppress food)
Story
Reading
n=79
(suppress story)
Free
Association
3 Minutes
Post-task
Questions
Self-reported
Lingering
Time
"Suppress thoughts related to food"
"Suppress thoughts related to the story"
Mean
Story Relatedness
Time (seconds)
Post-Story Suppress
Pre-Story Suppress
Post-Story Intact
Pre-Story Intact
CI: 95%, n=5000
Position
in Word Chain
Cohen's D
Post-Pre
Story Relatedness
Semantic biases undetectable when participants
suppress story-related thoughts.
CI: 95%, n=5000
Condition
Self-reported
Lingering
Narrative content persists
in thought regardless of
volition.
Intact
R
2
=0.13
Suppress
R
2
=0.05
p=0.066
Self-reported Lingering
Mean Post-Story
Relatedness
Semantic Biases & Subjective
Experience show a correlation trend.
Post-Story Suppress
Pre-Story Suppress
Post-Story Intact
Pre-Story Intact
Mean
Reaction Time (ms)
Time (seconds)
Position
in Word chain
Cohen's D
Post-Pre
Reaction Time
Participants do not respond slower, even while suppressing story-
related thought.
Suppress condition: "Were you intentionally reflecting on the text?"
Mental content persists without volition
58%
Unintentional
8%
Intentio
nal
11%
Both
2
%
18%
Neither
4%
no
rating
Don't know
Subjective Reports
"The second game was
hard
because I had to
think of not
using words
related to the
story that
I was just thinking
about"
"I wanted to write
words
having to do
with crime
and
murder afterwards
since it was top of
mind."
"After the text was much
harder.
The story touched so
many things
that my mind
strayed to, like water
and
fishing and daughters and
camping."
VOLITIONAL CONTROL OF
PERSISTENT MENTAL CONTENT
SUBJECTIVE & OBJECTIVE MEASURES
OF PERSISTENT MENTAL CONTENT
Intact condition:
"Were you intentionally reflecting on the text?"
Mental content persists without volition
44%
Unintentional
11%
Intentional
21%
Both
10%
Don't
know
13%
Neither
1
%
no rating
Narrative content persists
in thought.
Self-reported
Lingering
CI: 95%, n=5000
Condition
Intact
R
2
=0.13
Word Scrambled
R
2
=0.0
Self-reported Lingering
Mean Post-Story
Relatedness
Semantic Biases & Subjective Experience
are correlated.
Mean
Story Relatedness
Time (seconds)
Position
in Word Chain
CI: 95%, n=5000
Cohen's D
Post-Pre
Story Relatedness
Persistent mental content is detectable as semantic bias in
free association.
1 - not at all
7 - very much
"To what extent did the text linger
in your mind after reading it?"
float
boat
swim
drown
water
dead
drowning
murder
wife
husband
killer
crime
robbery
rape
assualt
homicide
destroy
evidence
group
secret
5
10
15
20
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Word Position
Story Relatedness
Objective: Semantic Biases
Subjective: Self-reported Lingering
...
Post-Story Intact
Pre-Story Intact
Pre-Story Word-scrambled
Post-Story Word-scrambled
METHODS
Free Association
BODY
previous cue
mind
generated associate
MIND
associate -> next cue
Time (5 Minutes)
Reading
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
How related is the word
to a specific moment
within the story?
Rating
Questions
Time
Each word is rated at least 10 times.
(separate participants)
n=238
Norming of Story Relatedness
Free
Association
5 Minutes
Story
Reading
Intact (n=80)
Text Manipulation
Word-scrambled (n=80)
Free
Association
5 Minutes
Post-task
Questions
Self-reported
Lingering
Time
Is persistent mental content involuntary
and
how can it be blocked?
Is the subjective experience of persistent
thought reflected in free-association biases?
Past experiences shape our current thoughts, actions, and
decisions. But which experiences resonate in mind?
Persisting thoughts enable us to find creative solutions to
problems (Gable et al., 2019) but are also associated with
depression and anxiety (Spinhoven et al., 2018). We recently
introduced a method to measure what mental content persists
in spontaneous thought after participants read a story (Bellana
et al. 2022).
INTRODUCTION
QUANTIFYING PERSISTENT MENTAL CONTENT
Gabriel Kressin Palacios
1
, Buddhika Bellana
2
& Christopher J. Honey
1
1
Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University;
2
Department of Psychology, Glendon Campus, York University
PP24
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the NSF(CAREER Award, C.J.H.) and the NIMH
(R01 MH 119099, C.J.H.)